I was fishing one evening last week on the Yakima River in the canyon. On summer evenings on the Yakima River, you usually only need to bring one type of pattern with you, a caddis pattern. There were a lot of caddis in the air, so I tied on the usual and started to fish. There were rising fish, but I wasn't doing as well as expected so I took a minute to think and evaluate the situation. I looked up and noticed that there were some big mayflies silhouetted against the evening sky. Although there were a lot more caddis than mayflies, the trout were taking the mayflies. Hmm more caddis than mayflies, but the trout eat the mayflies almost exclusively. Why? Do mayflies taste better? I thought about eating a mayfly and a caddis to see, but there is no guarantee that bugs taste the same to me as they do to a trout and I'm really not all that enthused about eating bugs. I decided to leave the bug eating to the more scientifically inclined.

I'd like to think that trout have a sense of romance and prefer mayflies because they are more aesthetically pleasing. Beautiful little sailboats floating down the river. There is no room for romance in a trout's brain though, and this is not a sport to them. Mayflies spend more time on the water drying and pumping their wings up before flying off. This makes them easier for a trout to catch and eat than most other bugs.

Trout like mayflies so much that during heavy hatches I've seen trout feeding so steadily that you can count down a pretty reliable four count to the next rise in one spot. This is when the trout are really "stupid" (you can catch them). Randal has a theory that they go into a kind of dream state at these times, sort of like miniature Homer Simpsons - mmm food. Just thinking about these mayfly hatches makes me feel kind of dreamy.

So next time a hatch has you stymied, just think like Homey. If you are still getting outsmarted by the fish, you can console yourself with the fact that you can count to two.